MIT Alumni Luncheon and Arduino success

On Thursday May 28th, a few members from the team presented the Aerial Wilderness Distress Monitor and Search System at the MIT Alumni luncheon at UCI (University of California, Irvine). The alumni members were excited to hear about the project. The three team members, Abhinand, Jerry, and Isaiah, explained the components and the purpose of the project. After the presentation, there was a lively Q & A discussion in which the audience asked questions about the project and its implementation. The alumni offered suggestions and possible future iterations for the project. Presenting at the luncheon gave Abhinand, Jerry, and Isaiah more experience and confidence in presenting the project, which will be helpful for when they present at EurekaFest.

Regarding the GPS and camera units, there had been a power/current issue that caused problems in the information storage of the pictures and GPS coordinates into the SD card, but it has been resolved. Before now, the Arduinos had to be connected to a laptop to have the camera and GPS units input information into the SD card, but the team found a way for the SD cards to store information without any attachment of the Arduinos to a laptop. The main problem had been in the order in which the SD cards were inserted into the Arduinos and the batteries attached to the Arduino units. The SD cards have to be inserted before the batteries give power to the Arduinos. Now, the team will be testing the responsiveness of the camera and GPS while the quadcopter is in flight.